shannon griffin boudoir
Healthy love has allowed me to create my most meaningful art. It’s allowed a safe space so that I can let all parts of me leave and then come back anew.
My home life is pretty ordinary and safe. The idea of that used to bore and scare me. It’s most likely because I was so used to the explosions and everyday turbulence of love before.
My art pulls me apart and love reals me in.
I hope to teach my daughter that the greatest love in life isn’t romantic love, but rather love with oneself.
Read MoreI talk a lot about my journey into boudoir.
How it started from a place of darkness and loneliness in my own life. A place of feeling invisible.
Photographing women, giving them a chance to feel seen and have a holistic experience, tricked my brain into thinking that I could give that back to myself. And, it worked.
It gave me the strength to make the changes I needed in my life to get to a place of wholeness and growth. Their bravery was a domino effect and mine soon followed. Okay, maybe a couple of years later, but it still followed and I know that these women had a lot to do with it. How could they not? By creating art with them, our stories were intertwined. I couldn’t tell my story without them and vise versa.
This leads me to my feelings on art being inherently selfish.
Read More“My photographs are on our bedroom wall, so I have seen them countless times since they have been hung, but every time I look at the pictures, I am still in awe that it is really me in them. I feel beautiful and sexy looking at them, but ironically, it is actually more of a daily reminder to myself to look internally as much as externally. When I look internally, these photographs make me feel empowered and I remind myself that I am capable, that I can do things outside of my comfort zone, and that I can have self- acceptance and self-compassion, because despite all my imperfections (as a wife, mother, and just person) - I am enough.”
Read More“For so long, I felt like I had only thought about beauty from a man's perspective and trying to be what he must find beautiful or sexy. I realized I was starting to develop my own definition of beauty and a way of appreciating it, and wanted to be a part of creating artful images that reflected/communicated my sense of beauty... a woman's sense of what's beautiful, aware that my definition of beauty is passed down to my daughter. I needed to demonstrate more self love for my body exactly the way that it is.”
Read MoreI'm a pessimist.
It's plagued me my entire life.
I've always thought, "I'm just never going to look at the world in a positive light. I'm always going to be negative and assume the worst."
I'm sure it's contributed to my (at times) crippling anxiety and (at times) depression.
I've been listening to podcasts about the studies on optimism and pessimism and it's been nothing short of eye-opening and inspiring.
They are learning that while it can be an inherited outlook, you can actually train yourself to be more optimistic.
The Happiness Lab has an interview with psychologist Marty Seligman (a self-proclaimed pessimist) on his studies on what makes people happy. He's quite literally changed his thinking to be optimistic.
Why am I writing this? I'm writing this because I know I'm not the only one who suffers from a debilitating mindset that affects everyone around you, including your family. I know that I'm not the only one who wishes that everything hard that happens isn't "the end of the world" or "worst thing ever".
I know I'm not the only one who has cried actual tears over the way their brain works, but hasn't wanted to know the actual answer of if it can be fixed because what if the answer is, "This is just who you are"?
I'm finding that it doesn't have to be. I can nurture the things that are good in my life and the strengths that I posses, instead of nurturing what brings me pain.
The first photo of me pregnant shows what motherhood has felt like for the most part.
The second photo is how I long to feel most days.
I'm going to nurture the good in my life so that I can be more of the woman in that second photograph. I deserve it.
